Rally Spain - 1st Day - 1st Loop: 0.5s separate Ogier from the leader Neuville, issues for Tanak



At the end of the morning loop of the first day, Thierry Neuville is the leader of Rally Spain with Sebastien Ogier and Kalle Rovanpera following him.

Thierry Neuville stole the lead of Rally Spain from Sebastien Ogier on the final stage of the Friday morning as he set the fastest time in Stage 4. However, it mist be mentioned that he struggled with the driveability with his i20N and suspected wrong mapping while he had an oil leak at the end of SS4.

Sebastien Ogier dropped to second place, but he was first overall at the end of Stage 3 as he was the fastest driver there. His gap from Neuville is at five tenths of a second.

Kalle Rovanpera completes the top three and was the fastest driver on the first two stages of this morning which means that he increased his gap over his rivals at the end of Stage 2. However, he dropped time on the next two stages as he reported understeer.

Ott Tanak follows the 2022 WRC Champion for 1,8 seconds and dropped some seconds in Stage 2 as he faced an issue with his i20N's hybrid unit. In addition to that, there was a red alarm on his dashboard at the end of Stage 4 and was forced to stop on the road section after the finish of SS4 as he was working on his car. The issue was related to the alternator, but he managed to move again and to go back to the service.

Elfyn Evans is in fifth place overall and left the home hero Dani Sordo behind for 13,9 seconds.

Takamoto Katsuta, Craig Breen, Adrien Fourmaux and Gus Greensmith complete the top ten.

Breen was off the pace as he said that his pacenotes were not correct for these stages.

Pierre-Louis Loubet is in eleventh position overall as he lost 49,4 seconds in Stage 3 after the front left tyre being off the rim. Finally, he was 16,8 seconds off tge pace in Stage 4 and pulled over his Puma after the finish with the bonnet up, but he managed to move again.


Watch below the stage times:







Watch the overall classification after SS4:




Photo Credits: Hyundai

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